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Games poised like this one are interesting odds-wise, because PSG is much better (especially at home) but United needs a goal. If no goals are scored in the first 20 minutes or so of this second half it probably benefits United more than PSG, and United's odds should rise slightly. After that, time becomes more of a factor and United's odds will fall without a goal. All other things being equal of course.

It's probably pretty financially valuable for Porto to advance, plus they can continue to showcase the young talent that they're likely to sell. I'm pulling for them because Porto is one of my favorite cities I've ever visited.

At the time of the draw, 538 favored Roma slightly. They're still pretty close by 538's methodology, though Porto is ahead. Betting odds were always about 50/50 until Roma's narrow win in the first leg.

To be fair to VAR, the refs are calling that a penalty fairly consistently on VAR. It's as simple as intentionally putting your body in the way of a shot, with your arms away from your body (intentional or not). That's basically the way it's being called right now, for better or worse.

I don't like it, but if that's to be the rule they should write it in the rulebook.

First four teams through to CL quarterfinals: Tottenham, Ajax, ManU, one of Porto/Roma. I have to think the teams going through next week (likely Atletico, Barcelona, Man City, and then either Liverpool or Bayern) are all favored over the teams going through this week.

edit: they're calling anything where a player is attempting to get in the way of the ball, with his arms away from his body, a penalty. That is consistent, sort of, but it's pretty bad.

Why is that bad? You're not allowed to play the ball with your arms, it's kind of the fundamental rule of the game. If you don't want to get called for it grab your wrists and keep your arms tight to your body. If your arms are away from your body in my opinion that should be a penalty.

they're calling anything where a player is attempting to get in the way of the ball, with his arms away from his body, a penalty. That is consistent, sort of, but it's pretty bad.

This is how replay works, no? It's why the fielder holds the glove on a runner after a base is successfully stolen. And in the NFL it's how you end up with catches somehow not being called catches. Once you go to replay, it seems like you inevitably end up with the most pedantic interpretation of the rules.

Once the ref did his little square motion just now, I felt that the corner was undoubtedly going to be changed to a penalty.

FWiW I thought it was a clear penalty. Arm out from his body. I got no love for United.

Edit: Or what Jose said. As a defender that is drilled into your head from day one. He knew he was in trouble when it went to VAR. As for VAR, as I have said in the past, I am agin it. I think it opens the door to a whole new raft of problems quite aside from flow of the game which is also a negative.

Personally I think it holds defenders to too high a standard, like a lot about the penalty rule.

It's not the worst thing in the world. On the other hand, I really hope they don't use the same type of reasoning even when a player has no intention of getting in the way of the ball at all (like in the Napoli game).

edit: not that it matters here, but I was rooting very heavily for United in this particular case, and love, love that PSG is out.

As far as oil mega bastard clubs go I have a soft spot for PSG after the Neymar saga. All the lolz.

That said, I was rooting for both teams to lose. Sadly, not possible but it was incredible how open the game was for United. Seas parted repeatedly in midfield. PSG lost that match for spite over Rabiot. That’s one way to run a club I guess. I didn’t understand why Paredes didn’t start.

Essentially Tuchel screwed the pooch and two thirds of what makes PSG PSG was out.

The level of pixie dust that Man U has been sprinkled with over the last couple of months is nothing short of remarkable.

Though to be fair, they took their chances, and PSG made two really, really bad plays to lead to the first two goals.

Unsure what I think of the PK. I see both sides. I think VAR will dictate there needing to be intermediate penalties like indirect free kicks. I do generally think the idea, for any sport, of using super slo-mo to judge fouls and illegal actions during a play is not a good trend. In this specific scenario, though, he did jump to block it, and just thinking outloud, I feel like he is more responsible for his arm being in that placement than if it was just ripped and he turned his back. I'm not sure if that logic was used, though.

I said this earlier in the season, but if you take away discretion from the refs by using VAR, then you’re going to get a lot more penalties. It’s clearly a penalty, even though that Porto player was never getting there.

To me, the penalty in the United game isn't any different from ones which (I hear) the refs have been explicitly instructed to give. These happen when a defensive player slides sideways to stop a shot and puts his arm down on the ground to brace his slide, and the ball, which would have gone right under his body, hits his arm. In both cases the player is trying to get his body in the way of the ball and has the arm out from the body, in what is a more or less natural position considering the action of the player's body overall. I think the logic goes that it is the action of the player in general, to block the shot, that is intentional, so any contact with an arm away from the body is the defender's responsibility.

I don't really like the rule called this way but I think it has been called fairly consistently with VAR.

It's also not that different from a defender stabbing at the ball in the box (legitimately going for the ball) and contacting an offensive player's leg. We've seen penalties consistently given on these plays if the payer goes down even on very slight contact, even if there is no shot and no possible attempt on goal, and even if the ball has already rolled away from the offensive player. To me those calls are often worse.

It has always been effectively impossible for refs to actually know the intent of a player on any handling, so they have to use objective indicators about how responsible the player is for the ball hitting his hand. The player had two major strikes against him in this case: attempting to get in the way of the shot with his body, and arm position away from his body. I'm not saying that should be enough, but refs have been calling it that way under VAR, when they can see it clearly. My guess is that they have mostly always been calling it that way when they are sure that's what happened even without VAR, but because before VAR they often haven't seen a play completely clearly, they often haven't given a penalty if there was more than a little bit of doubt.

It doesn't do any good to say to the ref: you can't know what he was thinking, so no handball. Handballs have never been called that way. If they finally get rid of the "deliberate" wording from the rule, like they say they are, we can finally stop having silly arguments about whether the player consciously and specifically attempted to use his hand to block the ball--a criterium that refs have never used to call handball.

I didn't see the Man City/Schalke game, but as expected this handball call was more or less par for the course now. From the UK times:

Football’s lawmakers will bring in a new wording on handball next week in a move to end confusion over “deliberate” contact of the hand with the ball.

There was renewed controversy during Manchester City’s win at Schalke in the Champions League last night when the video assistant referee (VAR) awarded a penalty against Nicolás Otamendi for handball even though the City defender appeared to be trying to get his arm out of the way.

That ruling was in line with Uefa’s guidance to referees on handballs — that if the ball strikes the hand or arm when it is away from the body then it is an offence — but a new wording of the handball law will be passed at a meeting of the International FA Board (Ifab) in Aberdeen on March 2.

David Elleray, the technical director of Ifab, told The Times: “The new text will clarify those situations where players can expect contact with the arms to be penalised and where they can expect not to be penalised. It will significantly reduce the grey areas around handball.

“We will be identifying those areas were non-deliberate contact will be penalised and when it won’t be.

There will still of course be a reference to deliberate handball — there has never been any discussion about getting rid of that, and any deliberate handball will be penalised in any situation.”

Last month, Uefa’s head of refereeing warned English teams to expect a stricter enforcement of handball decisions from VARs in the Champions League than they may be used to in the Premier League.

Roberto Rosetti said officials would penalise handballs if defenders use their arms to make their bodies “bigger” to block crosses or shots, adding: “When the arm is totally out of the body or above the shoulder it should be penalised, If the defender is making the body bigger in order to block the ball it is not fair.”

There was a delay of almost three minutes during the Schalke match before the referee finally awarded the spot-kick, due to the fact that the pitchside monitor did not work.

"In the past, we've managed to improve the laws by focusing on the outcome rather than intent.
...

"We've changed it to say the body has a certain silhouette," said Elleray. "If the arms are extended beyond that silhouette then the body is being made unnaturally bigger, with the purpose of it being a bigger barrier to the opponent or the ball.

"Players should be allowed to have their arms by their side because it's their natural silhouette."

About half of that difference, in both goals for (5 out of 9) and goals against (3 out of 8), came in the 5 non-league games: PSGx2, Arsenal, Chelsea and Reading. In the league they haven't outperformed xG nearly as much per game.

Penalty called for Inter against Frankfurt--the kind I hate where the offensive player is facing away from goal, looking for contact and exaggerates minor contact. No chance to score on the play. It was probably a foul, but the need to award a penalty for plays like that lessens the game for me. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to some lesser sanction.

Arsenal have been scrambling badly down to 10-men at Rennes. Ironic that they finally gave up an own goal in a situation when there wasn't a ton of danger. Down 2-1 and just trying to survive the rest of the 90.

I know that with a few fairly good results in a row, that Sarri is probably safe for the season. But again he's going to bench Hudson-Odoi in a Europa match and I can't help but to want his replacement. Watching ManU, even if forced, rely on some kids without the half the pedigree of CHO win a CL match while watching CHO rot is the straw that broke that camel's back. I know about our history with youth which is unbelievably bad but this case feels different and worse. Lampard, though in a slide himself right now, can't come quick enough to save us.

Arsenal down 3-1 to Rennes. Looked terrible with 10 men. Touch and go now back in London and I doubt Arsenal are favorites to advance at this point.
Slavia Prague got 2 away goals in Sevilla. Now a home draw will likely get them through despite coming in as very big underdogs.
Villareal wasn't supposed to impress against Zenit (odds were 50/50 coming in), but they got the 3-1 away win and are in firm control.
Benfica lose 1-0 to Zagreb, which puts them in tough spot going back home, despite coming in as fairly big favorites.

edit: none of the scorelines were close to xG except the Zagreb win over Benfica. xG thought Arsenal and especially Sevilla and Zenit deserved better. It also thought the Inter/Frnakfurt game was fairly close, but expected many more goals overall.

Is it possible that CHO has flat out said he's 100% leaving Chelsea as soon as he gets the opportunity? The alternative feels kinda gross; that Sarri played him during the transfer window to keep him happy, only to pull the rug out from under him.

Depending on how the EPL goes in the next couple of weeks, I could see Chelsea punting the top 4 and going all in on Europa.

Rennes has a couple of decent players but that shouldn’t have happened. Someone is going to pay a lot of money for Sarr. As for Chelsea and CHO, yeah, he should go to the Bundisliga. Brewster for LFC should have gone to BMG. Same thing for a guy like Foden or even Loftus Cheek. Wasting a career.

Big suit by USWNT against USSoccer for gender discrimination. All team members joined.

IIRC the financials from US Soccer shows that women are, if not always bringing in more annual revenue than the men, at the very least in the same ballpark and meanwhile they're paid vastly less than the men to the point where the USMNT players make more for losing friendlies than the women do for winning friendlies. Unlike so many sports where the men's side is indisputably more popular and valuable, in this case we have a women's team that's at rough parity with the mens side and getting paid something like 40% as much.

IIRC the financials from US Soccer shows that women are, if not always bringing in more annual revenue than the men, at the very least in the same ballpark and meanwhile they're paid vastly less than the men to the point where the USMNT players make more for losing friendlies than the women do for winning friendlies. Unlike so many sports where the men's side is indisputably more popular and valuable, in this case we have a women's team that's at rough parity with the mens side and getting paid something like 40% as much.

I've never understood the justification for US Soccer, a nonprofit organization, to pay its player participants different participation fees. I mean this revenue argument is accurate and everything, but it would be absurd to have a discrepancy even if the numbers were reversed. Johnny and Jenny Ad Sales can fight over who is boosting revenue more, that's not Megan Rapinoe's responsibility.

I don't understand a lot about soccer governance. I was floored to find out that if a player refuses to play for his/her national team, FIFA can suspend them from playing for their club team. I mean, WTF? How is that not racketeering? Why do we let this go on?

I don't understand a lot about soccer governance. I was floored to find out that if a player refuses to play for his/her national team, FIFA can suspend them from playing for their club team. I mean, WTF?

Is this really true? If so, then the amount of $$ a national team has to pay its players probably has to have some connection to the amount of money they make from their clubs, which is, unfortunately, an argument against the US women in this case.

More generally speaking, it's not really the case in most industries that the relative revenue an employee brings is very closely connected to their relative salary. Obviously that could cut either way for women's salaries at national team levels, mostly in favor of them in any nation except for the US.

It is. It's why players always have to be "injured" to avoid a call up. This is FIFA's handy rule for letting the Argentina FA (as an example) sell appearances by Messi et al all over the world and then "re-invest" the cash into "grass-roots football" and the players go along with it. Bwahahahahaha! It is a HELL of a scam.

I've never been within many miles of Manchester and can't speak with any authority, but my understanding is that City fans like to claim that Old Trafford isn't actually located within the city anyway. So there!

Well it appears I was one for two. After Wenger left I said if I owned Arsenal and a copy of footy manager I would hire Monchi and throw a ton of money at Simeone. Emery will do though.

Roma fans hate Monchi for some reason. The Nzonzi deal stunk true, and Schick wasn’t great, but the Naingolan deal should be framed and put in a museum. CL semi and that deal not good enough, tough crowd. If they leave him alone Arsenal is in business. I never rated Mslintat.

The national team thing is true as far as I know, I was shocked the first time that was mentioned in an article. I could never figure out why every good player was waving the flag for their country and grinding ligaments to dust in endless friendlies before I heard that. I figured there had to be as least a few Kents that would rather wash their truck and stay home.

I am as patriotic as the next guy, but frankly I would rather get a week off with the scrubs during international breaks if it were me. Which I suppose is part of the reason I watch from the couch and would be a rotten footballer. Well, that and the complete absence of talent.

IIRC the financials from US Soccer shows that women are, if not always bringing in more annual revenue than the men,

I'm pretty sure this happened during the year when the Women's World Cup occurred and it was just a regular year for the men's team. There is no way the women's team would come close to the men's team when it comes to bringing money in. Even when the women's team draws good crowds the price of the ticket is so much lower than any men's match.

In most years? Yes. Over the long term, the more established men’s game brings in consistently higher game revenue year over year. (Sponsorships and television revenue are not counted in game revenue calculations; Nike, Fox Sports and ESPN, for example, are “buying the crest,” in U.S. Soccer vernacular, not the rights to a single team.)

Maybe revenue should be a factor in player pay (though I'm not at all sure about that), but it certainly shouldn't be the only factor. There's probably too much focus on it in this discussion.

I'm pretty sure this happened during the year when the Women's World Cup occurred and it was just a regular year for the men's team. There is no way the women's team would come close to the men's team when it comes to bringing money in. Even when the women's team draws good crowds the price of the ticket is so much lower than any men's match.

Part of the reason for this lawsuit is to open the books and actually find out.

Plenty of work will need to be done in discovery to develop that argument, but what is clear is that the winds may have shifted a bit on US Soccer’s 2016 “market realities” argument. At the heart of US Soccer’s initial defense to the EEOC wage discrimination claim was an argument that USWNT revenue numbers that outpaced the men stemmed from a post World Cup champions windfall and didn’t, at least in the main, represent a “new normal.”

Those arguments operated under economic models projecting a USMNT World Cup windfall in 2018. The men, however, famously failed to qualify and that failure has opened the economic door for the women in revenue arguments. Now, the USWNT very well may be able to utilize new revenue figures and go through discovery and argue that in fact, the USWNT revenue figures are a “new normal,” at least in the last 24 month-world where the US men missed the World Cup, which meant no World Cup revenues and drastically diminished men’s revenue at the gate. It should not be lost on anyone that just this week, a crowd of 14,009 to see the USWNT in Tampa on a chilly Tuesday night was deemed “disappointing” despite the fact it was still a crowd 50% larger than the one that showed up to see the US Men’s National Team open their 2019 on a Sunday night in Phoenix. These little distinctions will matter as the litigation moves forward.

Dortmund is having all kinds of trouble again. They've better team today (which they should be, since they are home against relegation-threatened Stuttgart, with just 5 away points), but they needed a soft penalty from nothing to take the lead, and now it's all square late after a set piece the other way.

The next men's match is 03/21 in Orlando against Ecuador. Cheapest ticket is going for $32. Next women's match is in (Colorado) Rapids stadium against Australia and is sold out. The following match is in LAFC's stadium against Belgium and the cheapest ticket is $40. Based on this totally unscientific googling, it definitely looks like the women's team is in higher demand (definitely surprised me). Of course these matches are important tune ups to the World Cup, and while there are a lot of Ecuadorians in the US it isn't exactly a marquee match on the men's side.

Of course, I'd imagine just like in every other sport (including club football), gate is becoming a less important part of the revenue pie. I'm sure there will be all sort of shenanigans if/when they see the books with how they allocate sponsorships and Tv money.

What's in the water today? It looks like nobody wants to be the third team relegated. Cardiff got a huge win, but so did Brighton, Newcastle and Southampton have all followed suit. That's not good news for Burnley, who are away to Liverpool.

Southampton game from behind against Spurs of course, but Newcastle came down from 0-2 to beat Everton.

Manchester United and Spurs are roughly equals now on the year (league only) in most xG measures: ManU slightly ahead if you include penalties, and slightly behind if not. Of course, they have been trending in opposite directions. Arsenal is just a hair behind, actually ahead of Tottenham on understat if you don't include penalties. Chelsea's ahead of the three, but only by a little if you don't include penalties.

No shots by Watford in the first half against Man. City. That's at least 135 minutes now that City has gone without giving up a shot.

edit: City only gave up 2 shots in their previous game (against West Ham).
edit2: it looks like both shots were by Andy Carroll, one in the 50th and one in the 84th minute. So over 140 minutes now without a shot (and at least 225 minutes since anyone except Andy Carroll).

Kompany gave up a late foul in a dangerous position, but Watford put it into the wall. Counts as a shot of course. Underscores just how good City has been though as it seems they haven't even given up any fouls in their own third for almost 3 games.

Thinking about Spurs and Poch..... In the league its looking like another Spurs season like the last few and I wonder where they go from here, assuming Poch and most of the players stick around. Poch seems like to play his favourites again and again, but leads to staleness and tiredness (like today). They really need to sign some players, but from reading Poch's book, he wants to sign younger players and develop them. I think the whole "we cant spend any money because of the stadium is a ruse". Its almost like Poch is getting a share of he profits. If I was a Spurs fan I would be saying something has to change. If they don't get any new players, then why expect anything different?

Liverpool is the far better team today, but each of their goals, on their own, could/should have been prevented by competent defensive play. 2 are on the GK, and one on the player who didn't see Lallana coming.

Similar scorelines in the Liverpool and Manchester City wins, and both were far better than their opponents, but City just looks so much more solid at the moment. I'm not particularly optimistic about Liverpool's chances for the title, but that just means if they do pull it off it's likely to involve a lot of nail-biting and be quite exciting.

Chelsea deserves that. They had four guys back, and all of them stopped following the goal scorer Jimenez after he made his earlier pass, leaving him completely unmarked for the return pass. WTF.

edit: that was Wolves first shot of the game, and Chelsea has to know that kind of play is going to be their entire offense today. There's absolutely no excuse for not being ready for it and following Jimenez.